Page 110 of Song of the Abyss

“Hush, you. I’m trying to get her healed. None of the med packs will do anything about the worsened hearing problems, though. I’m not a healer. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

If she didn’t know what she was doing, then she should let Daios do it. Then at least he could be certain someone wasn’t hurting her as Mira poured more of that goo down the still bleeding lines that marred Anya’s head.

She looked... wrong. Dissociated, he might have said. Her features were so much paler than he’d ever seen them, and her eyes were a little too glassy. She looked very much like she wasn’t even in the room.

He wanted her here with him. He wanted to know that she was alive and well and that no matter what had happened, she didn’t look at him like he was still a monster.

After all, he’d killed her father. Or at least, the man she thought was her father. He’d listened while she told Mira and Arges everything that had happened the moment he swam up with her into the moon pool. Before the entire place was swarmed with people and she stopped looking like she was seeing what was going on right in front of her.

“We’re going,” he announced. “Or everyone else is leaving.”

“Excuse me?” Mira said, whipping around with a glare on her face and that strange tool suddenly wielded like a weapon. “You’re going nowhere with her. She needs to rest.”

“Then everyone else get in the water and we will continue our conversation outside.”

Arges blinked at him. “Do you have some disagreement about how we’re doing things now?”

“I do.” He tightened his arms around Anya. “She needs rest. You are not letting her rest.”

Everyone whipped around to look at her and they must have seen the same thing he did. A woman who was now a little bit fractured and frayed around the edges. They all needed to give her space.

The depthstriders were the first to sink out of the room. Then Maketes, who gave Anya one last worried look before he disappeared. Arges was the last, his eyes on both of the humans before he looked at Daios.

“Be nice,” he said, his voice low and soothing.

Daios bared his teeth in a snarl and ignored his brother’s laughter. He shifted even closer to Anya, gently tugging her trembling hands from her lap and bringing them to his mouth. “I wish I could tell you how much I love you. How your light has brought more wonder and joy to my life than I have ever felt in it. I have been a warrior my entire life, and before you, that was all I was. You make me want to put my weapons down and find out what it really means to live.”

He ignored that Mira pressed her hands to her mouth, and slipped into the water as well. He had to work to do. Business to finish that would mean he could let all this go. But he had to do this first.

It took about a week for him to get everything done. His people had decided to go back to Alpha and rip the entire city apart. The one fracture was too easy to fix. Maketes was still in contact with Anya’s friend, so Ace sent them a little help as well. Ace claimed there were cameras ready to broadcast everything they did to all the other cities. So he and all the other large People of Water pulled the city apart, glass panel by glass panel.

They shattered everything on the stones, leaving nothing but rubble. He took what he wanted out of it, because there were quite a few things to salvage. None of what remained would be given to the humans.

Jewelry, dresses, whatever looked useful, he took. He even brought back a droid that looked a lot like Bitsy for Mira to fix up. Hopefully, there was a way to bring the little droid back to life.

And a week later, when all of it was done, he felt like he could return to her side as a good man. As the man who had changed everything for her.

No longer did he need to struggle or fight. He had set that life aside. And Daios found that he was quite looking forward to what he would find in the future.

Poking his head into the moon pool, he peered through the dark room. It was still early. Mira was probably asleep, but he knew they had set up another small bed for Anya in the garden room.

“Anya,” he called out, before tossing a pebble into that room, but he didn’t need to wake her. She was waiting for him. Like her soul had known he was coming for her today and he wasn’t leaving without her.

She appeared like a ghost, wearing a soft pale gown that he had gotten her. She said it was for sleeping, but he had wanted to see her like this. With the moonlight streaming through the water and turning her skin and the fabric to ivory. She slipped into the sea with him without a sound, but he noticed there was a new droid wrapped around her head.

“My gift worked?” he asked, his claw tapping the metal as he drew them both into the water.

She nodded, then grabbed onto the tentacle at the base of his skull and affixed it to her throat. Now that he was breathing for her, he didn’t have to worry as much. She was safe in his arms, right where she should be.

He took his time gliding through the currents, drawing her off into a hidden area of the ocean where no one would bother them.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, her voice light as air.

“I thought we could enjoy each other for a while.” He had hopes for more, but if it was just holding her, then he would be happy. “There’s something I want to show you.”

They said nothing else, but he knew she had understood him. He could see the words reflected on her lens.

Daios thought maybe he should be a little worried that she was saying nothing. She had been through a lot, and he didn’t want to be the one to push her. After all, it had been... hard for both of them. The distance. The knowledge that they had succeeded in doing what they had set out to do.

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